State v. Mikesell
| Decision Date | 07 December 1886 |
| Citation | 30 N.W. 474,70 Iowa 176 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. MIKESELL |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Marion District Court.
INDICTMENT FOR ROBBERY. The defendant was convicted of the crime of robbery, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary, and from that judgment he appeals.
REVERSED.
Anderson & Kinkead, for defendant.
A. J Baker, Attorney-general, for the State.
The offense of which the defendant was convicted was committed on the night of the twenty-third of June, 1882. The victim of the crime is one Christopher Wagner, who, at the time of its commission, was over eighty years old. He lived alone, in the country, and on the night in question his house was entered by two masked men, who were armed with revolvers, which they pointed at him, and demanded his money. He accompanied them to his cellar, and there took $ 345 from a place of concealment, and delivered it to them. They then bound and blindfolded him, and demanded that he should disclose to them the place of concealment of other money which they claimed he had about the house, and he accordingly told them of another place where he had some money concealed. They searched the place designated by him, and there found about $ 38, which they took. They then went away, leaving him bound and blindfolded. At the August term of the district court following, an indictment was returned against the defendant, in which he was accused of the crime of larceny from a dwelling house in the night time, committed, as was averred, by stealing the money in question from the dwelling house of said Christopher Wagner. He was tried on that indictment at a subsequent term of the court, and acquitted. The present indictment was returned at the January term 1885. In addition to his plea of not guilty, defendant pleaded his acquittal on the former indictment in bar of the prosecution. A demurrer to the plea of former acquittal was interposed by the district attorney, and sustained by the court.
I. Wagner was examined as a witness on the trial, but he did not undertake to identify the defendant as one of the persons who committed the crime. At the August term, 1882, of the district court, an indictment was returned against one James Hevlin, by which he was accused of said robbery. He was subsequently tried and convicted of the crime, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The state introduced Hevlin as a witness on the trial of the defendant, and he testified that he and defendant were the persons who committed the robbery, and that one Stodgell was concerned in the commission of the crime, although he was not personally present at the time. This is the only evidence which tends directly to connect the defendant with the transaction. It is therefore important to inquire whether Hevlin was corroborated in the respect required by the statute.
The district court instructed the jury that defendant could not be convicted on the testimony of Hevlin, unless he was corroborated by such other evidence as tended to connect him with the commission of the offense. The instruction was substantially a quotation from the statute. Code, § 4559. We have examined the record with care, and have been unable to find any evidence whatever, except the testimony of Hevlin, which tends to connect the defendant with the crime. One witness testified that he saw defendant and Hevlin and Stodgell together about four o'clock in the afternoon of the twenty-third of June, at a place some three miles from Wagner's residence, and that...
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